Donald Trump is dangerous! He must never be re-elected

Donald Trump is a defeated political creature. In fact, he never succeeded at anything unless he cheated.

This article published on CNN and was featured in the Brunswick, Maine, Bowdoin College news:

https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2020/07/former-defense-secretary-william-cohen-62-raises-alarm-about-second-trump-administration.html

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen (a Republican former Congressman and Senator from Maine) alum’62, H'75 raised alarm about a second trump administration

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Secretary William Cohen Bowdoin College class of’62, H'75 was blunt in his warning about the impact of a second Trump administration: 

"We would not recognize America as a democracy."

Secretary Cohen, who was a Republican US Representative for Maine during the Watergate investigation, told CNN's Amanpour that Donald Trump "is taking us down the road to tyranny." Cohen also served as a Republican in the US Senate from 1979 to 1997.

"[Trump's] trying to replicate what he sees as a positive in" Russia, Turkey, China, and North Korea, Cohen continued. "I think he wants to have one-man rule, and it's not the rule of law but just the opposite, the law of rule where he only can make decisions."

When Amanpour asked whether Cohen has lost faith that US institutions can ward off this challenge, he replied that while the US Congress, Department of Justice, and military are "holding for now," they may not survive a second term.

"[Trump] is doing his best to tear down these institutions and to politicize them, so that they bend down to his rule," Cohen said. "He likes to call the judiciary 'my judges,' and the military 'my generals.'"

Cohen also expressed his worry about the upcoming election, and criticized his party for inhibiting people's ability to vote. "I don't think [the election] will be fair," he said. "I think the Republicans will do everything in their power to suppress the vote."

Donald Trump is incompetent!

Meanwhile, Trump is busy "degrading the notion of write-in ballots," an ominous sign that he's already calling into question the legitimacy of the vote before it even occurs. "I don't think he'll accept the results—assuming he loses. Again, that's a big assumption, because I think they'll do everything to suppress the vote in those states and those areas where minorities are the strongest."

In the course of the sixteen-minute conversation, Cohen spoke passionately about the Black Lives Matter protests. He praised the people who are taking to the streets to demand the uprooting of systemic racism in the country, and he noted how important it is for white people to participate.

"I am delighted to see the people on the street, especially white people in the street. Because it won’t happen without us, because we’re the one who have the instruments of power, and we have had them all along. We have done everything in our power to subordinate, to subjugate, and to keep our knee on people of color," he said.

"So the time has come for an awakening of what we have done and what we need to do to be a better America and a better world."

Holding a Bible does not give Donald Trump the moral authority to bully Americans or to reverse DACA

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals- Donald Trump's evil policy to refuse more DACA applications is a terrible act of injustice to innocent, and hard working Americans who live, and work in our nation and deserve earning a path to US citizenship.

When Donald Trump made a fool of himself by hypocritically posing with a Bible as though the emtpy gesture justified assaulting peaceful protestors with tear gas, he obviously had never taken any time to read the Scriptures printed within the covers.  

"Blessed by the peacemakers...." Beatitude, any of the blessings said by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount as told in the biblical New Testament in Matthew 5:3–12 and in the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:20–23.

Echo opinion published in America the Jesuit magazine, reported by Carol Zimmerman

Faith leaders are right to criticize Trump’s plan to reject new DACA applicants

Donald Trump is hypocritical with a Bible because he has no idea what is written in the Scriptures, inside the binding.

WASHINGTON (Catholic News Service) — Faith leaders and immigrant advocates have denounced the Trump administration’s plan to reject first-time applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, and limit DACA renewals to one-year extensions instead of two.

Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California, said the administration’s action, announced July 28 in a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security, was “irresponsible and recalcitrant.”

The memo was written by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and issued more than a month after the Supreme Court ruled against efforts by the Trump administration to end DACA.

When the administration failed to move on DACA after this ruling, a federal judge in Maryland July 24 said it had to publicly clarify the status of the DACA program within 30 days.

DACA, a program that was started in 2012 by President Barack Obama with an executive order, has enabled about 700,000 qualifying young people, described as “Dreamers,” to work, go to college, get health insurance, a driver’s license and not face deportation. These young adults were brought to the U.S. as children by their parents without legal documentation.

Wolf said the administration may try to end DACA by looking at it as a law enforcement issue potentially contributing to illegal immigration. He said the current measure is a temporary change while the federal government takes time to review future actions.

In the memo, Wolf said: “DACA makes clear that, for certain large classes of individuals, DHS will at least tolerate, if not affirmatively sanction, their ongoing violation of the immigration laws.”

For now, the biggest impact will be on those who would have been new applicants. Attorneys for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, known as CLINIC, have said that about 60,000 young people now over age 15 would now qualify for DACA status and had been urging young people to get their paperwork together and to seek legal advice about the program since the Supreme Court ruled in June that DACA would remain in place.

Under the new plan for DACA spelled out in the memo, the government also will deny requests by DACA recipients to visit their home countries except under “exceptional circumstances.”

Bishop Soto, chairman of the board of CLINIC, criticized the decision’s timing, in the middle of a pandemic, and said it signified a return “to the same callous posture, against which the court has already decided.” He also said the move will “aggravate the afflictions of many DACA recipients and aspirants, a significant portion of whom are essential workers” who are keeping vital parts of the economy running during the pandemic.

The bishop went on to say, in a statement, the directives “make no moral or practical sense” and will “only further cripple the recovery, especially for the vulnerable.”

“DACA recipients are vital to their families and to our country, which has become their home. They are our neighbors.” He urged the administration not to end DACA and work with Congress to create a path to citizenship for the program’s beneficiaries.

Hope Border Institute tweeted July 28 the administration’s action, on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision and federal rulings, “touches upon fundamental issues of rule of law and separation of powers. DHS and the President are not above the law.”

The Rev. Jennifer Butler, CEO of Faith in Public Life Action Fund, criticized Trump for “using the real lives of young immigrants as bait to lure racist support for his reelection. He should be ashamed. Congress cannot let him get away with this cruel act. They must pass the Dream and Promise Act right now for DACA recipients and others who live in fear of deportation.”

And Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said the administration’s action is “flouting immigration-related court orders left and right.”

She called on Americans to take action in defense of DACA recipients, acknowledging they are “every bit as American as us, and it is well past time we enshrine in law that their home is here.”

During a July 28 news briefing, the Donald Trump said: “We’re going to work with a lot of people on DACA.”

Without giving any details, he added: “We are going to make DACA happy and the DACA people and representatives happy, and we’re also going to end up with a fantastic merit-based immigration system.”

Maine Writer - As usual, the hypocritical Donald Trump changed his mind about DACA and he is moving forward with administrative policies to block new applications. #voteblue

Republicans engage in lemmings politics following Donald Trump's stupidity

More input from

I hold these truths to be self-evident:

• People who refuse to wear face masks in busy indoor public spaces are stupid.
• People who believe “no face mask!” is a political statement enhance their stupidity.
• Retailers who decline to require even their employees to wear masks -- often out of a perverted notion of constitutional rights -- put customers at risk, undermine the health and welfare of the community, and that is stupid, too.

Trump and his gaggle of bootlickers have been rattled by polls that show not only his sinking-like-a-stone job approval rating, but also that Democratic standard-bearer Joe Biden beats him by double digits nationwide and in states Trump won in 2016.

Instead, Trump opted for more divisive pandering when he could have embraced an inclusive strategy to encourage all Americans to fight the plague, not each other. Instead, the nation confronts the ridiculous situation -- aided and abetted by an incompetent and corrupt president -- of politicizing something as efficacious as wearing face masks in a pandemic. His image belongs on a $3 bill.

Maine Writer Post Script-

North Dakota is now dealing with the coronavirus outbreak caused by the #TrumpVirus

In my opinion, the #Trumpvirus infected North Dakota when Donald Trump insisted on creating a "photo-op" in front of the Mount Rushmore monument and thereby infecting the First Nations reservation property with the pandemic.  This opinion letter is an echo published in The Bismark Tribune, a North Dakota newspaper.  #WearAMask

People in Noth Dakota are not being smart, nor U.S. smart, when they don't follow the public health advise to prevent spread of the dangerous coronavirus. #WearAMask During the last 20 days of June, North Dakota was testing about 12,000 new persons. Results were about 2.7% (324,313) per 10 days. July 1-10 another 12,000 were about 3.7% (433); then we tested another 20,139 from July 1-20 and found 1,156 new cases a 5.7% positive rate. Active cases in Burleigh-Morton have increased from just 52 on June 20 to 273 on July 23. Why? Refusal of mask wearing! In Germany, South Korea, the EU, New York, New Jersey, they have proved that masks and social distancing works. Why can’t we learn? Lets get SMART, stop the spread, protect your neighbor, wear your mask!

Kelly Carlson, Bismarck, North Dakota

http://www.thepiercecountytribune.com/page/content.detail/id/2597060/Health-official--Trump-rally--likely--source-of-virus-surge-.html?isap=1&nav=5039

Donald Trump uses Nazi Storm Trooper tactics to squelsh peaceful protests

Donald Trump is incompetent but rather than demonstrate leadership he is misusing military as his storm troopers police force

Echo opinion letter to the editor published in the Providence Journal, in Rhode Island.

When governors, during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, looked to Washington for a coordinated federal response and assistance with securing necessary medical equipment, President Donald Trump said they were on their own. When protesters showed up on the steps of several state house capital buildings brandishing automatic weapons, Donald Trump incited violence by encouraging them to liberate their states. 

Now, when protesters are demanding that our country look at issues of racial and social justice, matters that are of little importance to the president, he sends in unidentifiable federal militia in the name of law and order. He also threatens other cities with similar military intervention, despite the mayors and governors of these cities and states demanding that they do not want this to happen. These are the actions of an authoritarian regime, not those of a duly elected president of a democratic republic. As always, it is not America First, but Trump First.

Norman Fortin, in North Kingstown, Rhode Island

Donald Trump has no idea how to lead his incompetence is an embarassment

Echo opinion letter to the editor published in the Austin Statesman newspaper:

Donald Trump’s indifference harms young people

How many of the country’s COVID-19 deaths can be attributed to Donald Trump? (Maine Writer- In my opinion, Donald Trump fell victim to his own incompetence.  His response to the COVID-19 should have united Americans but, instead, Trump polarized the nation to the point that even wearing a protective face mask has become a political statement.  Donald Trump has missed an opportunity to lead. He is a failure.)

Why do we now have such a problem with the virus while Europe does not?

Instead of taking the virus seriously when it first appeared in America, Trump called it a Democratic hoax and did nothing to prepare the country to deal with it. Instead, he has tried to keep the country from any serious consideration of it. Even now when it is a very serious problem, he says it is 99% harmless.

The worst part of this crime is what it is doing to our young people. Experts have said the virus is most dangerous when people are not aware of their infection, that is they are most contagious before they have symptoms. This is especially bad for our young people because they can go away to school then come home to infect their family without even knowing they have the virus.

Allan Williams, Georgetown Texas

Donald Trump cognition- Wash Rinse Repeat.: Covfefe?

Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA),
the elephant question.

Echo opinion published in the Chicago Tribune newspaper by Jonah Goldberg

Donald Trump’s interview with Chris Wallace, which aired on “Fox News Sunday,” was remarkable in more ways than there is room to recount here.

But let’s start with what should be the lead story: The president of the United States told Wallace that the mental competence test he recently took was “very hard,” specifically the last five questions.
Just to be clear, Trump “passed” the test (Maine Writer, Paaaleeeze! It's not a "test"; rather, it's a cognitive assessment screening tool!)— a fact he’s boasted about on numerous occasions. “I aced it,” he proudly told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, earlier this month. 

Nevertheless, the problem is that none of the questions on the standard Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test are supposed to be hard, if you aren’t suffering from dementia of some kind. Crowing that you “aced” the MoCA is like bragging that you passed a sobriety test, while sober.

The last five questions of the 10-minute, nine-task exercise assess things like basic abstract reasoning — e.g., how are a train and a bicycle alike? — and rudimentary memory. The final exercise, presumably hardest, according to Trump, simply asks the patient to provide the date, time and location of the examination.

We should all hope the guy with the nuclear codes can “ace” this test. Some might even say we should have a president who didn’t find it “very hard” to ace it.

Trump’s bragging about his test results may simply be part of his strategy to cast presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden as “not all there.” But it’s hard to fathom why the Trump campaign thinks this is a shrewd gambit.

In Sunday’s interview, Wallace asked Trump point-blank, “Is Joe Biden senile?”

“I don’t want to say that,” Trump answered. “I’d say he’s not competent to be president.” (Hello? Vice President Joe Biden was competent to be president according to the US Constitution!) At first, it seemed the president was opting to take the high road. But he then went on to say, “Joe doesn’t know he’s alive, OK? He doesn’t know he’s alive.” And, later on, “He’s shot, he’s mentally shot.”

Perhaps he’s seen data suggesting attacks on Biden’s age don’t play well with senior voters, so the task is to claim Biden is mentally handicapped but not as a result of his age? That’s a level of nuance we’d expect of someone who aced a cognitive evaluation, but not what we’d associate with Trump’s political style.

Regardless, the whole strategy of attacking Biden as mentally incompetent is (wrong minded).... and risky. 

Forget that such tactics were once considered beyond the pale. And put aside the entirely reasonable conclusion that Biden does indeed show his age quite often — and that he’s always had a propensity to say weird things. The Trump campaign is now betting his reelection’s already slim chances on Biden proving Trump’s diagnosis is right.  (But, Donald Trump is completely incompetent to diagnose anything, he has no qualifications to diagnose.)
One of the central tasks of campaigning, and politics generally, is managing expectations. Beating expectations in a primary makes you a winner. Falling short has the opposite effect. For instance, Lyndon Johnson won the 1968 New Hampshire primary by seven points but fell so far below expectations that he withdrew from the race. Trump has benefited from early warnings that the U.S. could see millions of deaths from COVID-19, so the current — and rising — death toll of “only” 143,000 beats expectations.

As of now, all Biden has to do to beat the expectations laid out by Trump is prove he knows he’s alive — a very light lift. In normal times, presidential campaigns work hard to set expectations for the opponent unreasonably high.

Before Trump’s first debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, for example, then-RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said, “The expectations on Hillary are very, very high. She’s been doing this for 30 years. I think people expect her to know every little detail. She has to perform in a way that is of the highest of expectations. I think in the case of Donald Trump, look, he’s the outsider, he’s a person who’s never run before, let alone be in a presidential debate.”

In other words, if Trump even held his own in the debate, he should be declared the victor? (I don't think so!!!~ ugh!)

Given that Vice President Joe Biden's lead in the polls continues to widen, there’s no rush for him to call off his front-porch-style campaign. But, after months of Trump’s flailing, erratic and increasingly desperate attacks on Biden as a near vegetable, all Biden will have to do is come across as a reassuringly normal, pleasant, albeit gaffe-prone and competent leader. Biden, despite his flaws, seems up to that.

If the Wallace interview is any indication, it’s Trump who struggles to meet that remarkably low bar.

Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

And the Guardian newspaper wrote this:  

The test is called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and was created by the neurologist Dr Ziad Nasreddine in 1996. Talking to MarketWatch on Monday, Nasreddine stressed that the test “is supposed to be easy for someone who has no cognitive impairment”, saying that “this is not an IQ test or the level of how a person is extremely skilled or not. The test is supposed to help physicians detect early signs of Alzheimer’s.”

There are a few different versions of the test with small variations (such as the words to remember or animals to name), but the questions are generally the same. We can’t tell for sure which version Trump took, but as he said he did it recently, I’ve taken the latest MoCA test from their website.

Trump is right about the start of the test being easy. But when it comes to the last five questions, his claim that they’re “very hard” is unsettling (although not surprising) in what it reveals about his relationship with reality.

But before we dive into that, here’s what the test involves:

The first few questions are indeed “easy” – although it goes without saying that anyone experiencing cognitive problems is supposed to find it hard, and the point of the test is to help diagnose their condition.

First, you have to draw a line between numbers and their equivalent letters (1 to A, A to 2, 2 to B and so on). Then you have to draw a cube, and a clock at 10 past 11. Call it what you will – millennial-itis, lockdown brain – but this was actually a slight challenge as I can’t remember the last time I looked at a clock that wasn’t on my phone or laptop. So yes, it took me a second to remember that the minutes are all multiples of five – for 10 past the big hand points to two. But I figured it out in the end, and that’s all that matters.

The ‘elephant’ question

If you’re lucky enough to not have any cognitive impairment, this part is also easy. There are three drawings – a lion, rhino and camel. As mentioned, there are a few versions of the test with very minor differences – for example, the test Fox News showed during the interview had an elephant on it, but the latest test has a rhino instead. This has led some of Trump’s critics to baselessly claim that he can’t tell the difference between the two.

Repeat after me – and do some maths

Both of these sections are very simple, and involve repeating a series of numbers forwards and backwards, and remembering a string of five random words. The final part, which Chris Wallace mentioned, asks you to count back from 100 in multiples of seven (100, 93, 86). Like the clock, this took me slightly longer than I would have liked – but nowhere does it say this is a timed test. I did it in the end, slowly but surely.

The difficulties begin

This is where things get a little concerning.

If you remember, Trump bet Wallace that he “couldn’t even answer the last five questions” of the test. But for a mentally healthy person, the last five questions should be as simple as the rest.

The fifth-to-last question on the test asks you to repeat a sentence out loud, before naming as many words as you can starting with F. In the following “abstraction” section, you have to spot the similarity between different objects such as trains and bicycles (modes of transport), or a watch and a ruler (measuring devices).

Next, you have to recall the random words that were included in the earlier memory section. This may be the part that’s easiest to trip over.

And finally, for the orientation part of the test, you have to … say what the date is.

For Trump to claim these are hard is worrying because for any cognitively healthy person, they shouldn’t be. But before we start any armchair diagnosis, you have to weigh up two probabilities against each other. Is it really likely that he found the last five questions hard? Or is it more likely that he’s misrepresenting about how hard they were, in order to look “smarter” than Joe Biden?

In the same interview, Trump got his team to pass him a chart that he said showed the US had “one of the lowest mortality rates in the world”, when it didn’t do anything of the sort. This is shocking, but not surprising – Trump has now made more than 20,000 false or misleading claims since he took office.

So it seems more likely that Trump’s difficulties at the end of the test tell us nothing that we don’t know already. His prolific lying and self-aggrandisement, two things we have empirical evidence for, should be what worries us. For, similar to his “stable genius” claims, you’ve got to ask yourself: how many smart people brag about their supposed intellect so much, and in such a misguided way?

• This article was amended on 24 July 2020. To ensure that the memory section of the MoCA test remains valid for future participants, two images which revealed the answers to that section have been removed. (Maine Writer: The purpose of the cognitive evaluation tool is to assess memory capacity regardless if the image presented to the test taker is an elephant, a giraffe or a rhinoceros.)

America faces an epic choice ...

Coronavirus - obviously heat does not kill the vrus but sensible human behavior could slow the spread

"People are guessing, and guesswork doesn’t make for good public health policy," echo opinion. 

Echo editorial by The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board and published in the Arizona Sun newspaper: 

When demonstrators took to the streets to protest the death of George Floyd, under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, the cause was just but the worry was real: Were the marches going to lead to massive new outbreaks of coronavirus, just as much of the nation had flattened the curve? 

At the same time, newly reopened bars, restaurants and stores drew customers — sometimes masked, often not — while crowds returned to beaches. 

Released from sheltering in place, people held gatherings at their homes, trusting that the folks they invited would be careful not to expose everyone around them to danger.

Now, cases are surging in Arizona, Texas, Florida, Nevada, West Virginia, Tennessee and Montana; average case counts hit new highs Sunday in a dozen states, California included. For 27 straight days, the count for the country as a whole has climbed relentlessly higher.

Obviously, "snake oil" remedies are not killing the pandemic virus. In a moment of complete stupidity, Donald Trump instigated an international outcry after he suggested that injecting disinfectant was as curative treatment!

OMG- Donald Trump suggested that ingesting lysol will kill the virus.  He forgot that ingesting lysol will also kill the human, before the coronavirus has a chance.

So who’s to blame for the frightening increase in infections? Because the new coronavirus is, well, new, (!) and there’s still a lot we don’t know about what makes a situation safe, instead of a potential COVID-19 hot spot. But tentative answers are coming in now, sometimes at great human cost. 

The protests don’t seem to have caused any major health problems, even though the participants often were in close proximity and were frequently yelling, which increases the exhalation of droplets. Demonstrators in Boston were no more likely to test positive afterward than the city’s population as a whole. The rates of positive tests were similarly low among demonstrators in Minneapolis and Seattle. A national study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that overall, coronavirus rates were no higher in counties that were the sites of large protests than those that saw no demonstrations.

These findings are far from definitive, however. In Los Angeles, demonstrators had trouble getting testing appointments, which could mean that some cases are unknown and uncounted; in New York City, city officials instructed contact tracers not to ask people who tested positive whether they had attended protests, as though ignorance was going to make people safer.

Massive gatherings still aren’t a good idea — some protesters did in fact become infected — but there’s no indication, so far, that the protests were super-spreader events. Being outdoors almost certainly helped.

Instead, the most common sources of recent COVID-19 surges have been some of the smallest venues, especially bars. 

People there are socializing indoors, often in close proximity, talking loudly to be heard over the chatter, alcohol loosening their sense of caution, their masks coming off as they drink or not worn at all. A single Michigan bar has set the stage for more than 150 COVID-19 cases, so far.

The long-awaited reopening of indoor restaurants also appears to be a contributor. A J.P. Morgan study found that increases in on-site restaurant spending — not takeout — strongly predicted rising COVID-19 rates over the three weeks that followed.

Private get-togethers are repeatedly cited by health officials as problematic. Contact tracing in Sacramento found that the biggest sources of recent spread there were graduation parties, funeral gatherings and the like. Caution falls away when we’re with people who are known, loved and trusted.

A 51-year-old Lake Elsinore trucker, Tommy Macias, died June 21, after attending a barbecue where no one wore masks; he apparently caught it from another attendee who was infected but asymptomatic.

It would be premature to draw too many lessons from the limited data we have at this point. Still, the lectures given by public health officials appear to have been borne out in key ways. 

Outdoors is clearly less risky than indoors. Social distancing is needed, as are masks, masks, masks. COVID-19 is apolitical and without judgment; it neither rewards protesters nor punishes people who want a drink and some company. 

COVID just follows the laws of science.

Those are laws we have to understand much better if reopening — and re-reopening — is to work. People need to know which outings and activities minimize risk while providing a semblance of normal life. Most local beaches were closed for the July 4 weekend, but were those beaches, even if crowded, more dangerous than the block parties or backyard barbecues that replaced them? Is a beach significantly more dangerous if it’s crowded? And is that more or less risky than a visit to a salon or a workout at the gym? Do trendy, open office spaces need to return to high-walled cubicles?

People are guessing, and guesswork doesn’t make for good public health policy.

That’s where contact tracing comes in. The goal of tracing is to reduce the spread of disease by finding and contacting people who may have been exposed, so they can be tested. But it also can provide a mountain of data about the relative safety of different activities and environments, just as it did with the private celebrations in Sacramento. Some tracing exists, but as with many of the nation’s efforts, it is not nearly robust enough. That would take concerted support in terms of money and policy at the federal level, which so far has been missing.

The task is monumental and costly. But gaining a better understanding about how the virus is spreading is key to learning how to live with COVID-19 until the disease is tamed.

Donald Trump's failed COVID-19 response has exacerbated the pandemic

Playing a dangerous whack-a-mole arcade game with the coronavirus has been a losing Trump plan.

Echo opinion published in the Idaho State Journal newspaper, by the columnist Jim Jones.  

America is being treated as an international COVID-19 pariah by much of the developed world. We can’t travel to Europe because of our raging COVID-19 infections. We are not allowed into Canada, and many local governments in Mexico do not want U.S. visitors. Why is our country being treated like a leper colony?

For months, the U.S. has had the most reported COVID-19 infections of any nation on Earth. No other country even comes close. On July 19, we reported 65,279 new COVID-19 cases among our 331 million people. That same day, 273 cases were reported in Germany, 218 in Italy, 726 in the UK, 339 across the border in Canada and 7,615 in Mexico. The European Union, with a population near 445 million, has been reporting around 6,000 cases per day for several weeks. All told, the U.S. had almost 30% of the reported world infections on July 19.

How could the U.S. be such a COVID-19 basket case? As I pointed out in an April 24 column, Donald Trump’s plan for the coronavirus was to dump that job on the nation’s governors so that he could avoid any blame if things went badly. He refused to develop a coordinated strategy for handling this serious national threat, claiming it was the governors’ jobs to conduct the necessary testing, tracing, staffing, equipping and preventive measures to stop the virus.

Trump virus- Donald Trump's colossal leadership failure has caused the COVID-19 to spread.

When I wrote that column, infections were out of hand in northeastern states. However, infections were then low in many other states, including Texas, Florida, Arizona, California and South Carolina. Now, the virus has abated in New York but is ravaging southern and western states. On July 19, Florida, Texas and California reported a combined total of 29,203 cases, each state’s cases exceeding those of the entire European Union.

The problem is that the coronavirus does not recognize state boundary lines. Americans travel around the country, carrying the virus with them. The Trump plan of foisting his responsibility onto the states has resulted in a whack-a-mole game of individual governors struggling to control the virus in their state just as it pops up in another.

If Trump had taken the reins right at the start, implemented a nationwide strategy and followed the advice of the scientists, we could have brought the virus under control, like the nations of the European Union. 

Instead, Trump’s COVID-19 response is the worst of any world leader. With Trump’s mole-whacking approach, we have about one-fourth of world deaths, a struggling economy that will take years to right itself and damage to our national image that will haunt us long into the future. The U.S. is no longer admired as the can-do country.

It will not get any better during the remainder of Trump's tenure. He has taken to undercutting Dr. Tony Fauci and the other epidemiologists, falsely claiming that the virus will magically disappear, forcing premature state openings, and dithering about the use of masks and other protective measures. 

Many more people will needlessly die, there will be turmoil about when and how to open schools and the economy will suffer additional catastrophic damage. The American people have it in their hands to stop this losing mole-whacking approach in November. 

Enough is enough.
Jim Jones served as an Army artillery officer in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 and received an Army Commendation Medal for his work with an orphanage there. 

He served for eight years as Idaho Attorney General and was a justice on the Idaho Supreme Court for 12 years. He currently resides in Boise. His weekly columns can be found at JJCommonTater.com.

Jim Jones’ weekly columns can be found at JJCommonTater.com.

Chaos out of control in the Donald Trump administration

Echo opinion by Leonard Pitts, Jr., published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Mary Trump wrote "TRUMP: Too much and never enough", insider information about the Trump family's dysfunctions.

Donald Trump is not simply weak,” writes his niece, Mary  Trump. Rather, “his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows, deep down, that he is nothing of what he claims to be. He knows that he has never been loved.”

That ruined young Donald Trump.

Even worse, it may yet ruin us all.

Leonard Pitts Jr. lpitts@miamiherald.com

Who goes to the movies when their brother is on his deathbed? Donald Trump is reported to have done just that, while his brother Fred was at the end stages of alcoholism.

Mary Trump's book arrives just as controversy swirls over reports that Russia paid a bounty for American deaths while the White House did nothing, Ivanka Trump is under fire for posing with a can of beans and ICE is training civilians to arrest undocumented immigrants. 

In other words, a typical week in the chaos that is the Trump presidency.

Meantime, the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic Trump once assured us would magically disappear is approaching 140,000. In response, the White House launches an attack on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert and its most credible pandemic spokesperson, while Trump retweets a theory that “everyone is lying” about the virus to hurt him politically. It’s from Chuck Woolery, whose claim to fame is that he used to host “Love Connection.”

And again, seriously: Who does that?

The answer, of course, is no mystery to anyone who’s been paying attention. Still, Mary Trump performs a service by bringing to that answer both the authority of a psychologist — she holds a Ph.D. — and the insight of an insider.

Donald Trump is what you get when childhood is a zero-sum competition for the approval of “a high-functioning sociopath” whose values are expressible in dollars and cents. He is what happens when a boy is allowed to bluff, brag and bully his way through life, no one ever tells him “no” and everyone acts as if his waste products are without odor. 

Trump is what’s left when you subtract compassion, accountability, humility and the ability to laugh at yourself. (Maine Writer post script, has anybody witnessed Donald Trump spontaneously smiling lately....or ever?)

Donald Trump's infectious incompetence needs a truth vaccine

There was a time when the common perception about the anesthetic in ether was called a truth serum.  Well, today what people need are truth vaccines.  In other words, the ability to create antibodies to protect the brain from being infected with Donald Trump's litanies of lies.

This opinion essay was written by the political columnist E.J. Dionne and published in The Washington Post.

We could all spend a lot of intellectual energy debating whether Donald Trump's failures are due primarily to corruption or incompetence, but it would be a waste of time.

Understanding that his incompetence flows from his corruption should animate the arguments against his reelection and inspire the work journalists do in making sense of the chaotic mess Trump has made of our government.

It won’t be easy. Trump has been involved in so many scandals and says so many reprehensible things that our country has developed a kind of herd immunity to the outrage that just one of his actions would have called forth in any previous administration. We have allowed Trump to fend off one scandal with . . . another scandal.

The key is seeing that Trump’s entirely selfish approach to the presidency has a measurable and material impact on the lives of citizens and on the policies he pursues — to the extent thathe is interested in policy at all. He cares above all about his own finances, his ego, his ratings and escaping accountability. Everything else falls by the wayside.

Trump’s opponents cannot assume, as they did in 2016, that if they drive home just how awful Trump is personally, voters will recoil in horror. This year, it is essential to make the case that Trump’s corruption means that most of the time he pays no attention to governing. And when he does, he governs in a way that subordinates the public interest to his own interests — and the interests of those who keep him in power.

Consider the past couple of days. The New York Times offered a jaw-dropping article that Trump instructed the U.S. ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, to ask the British government to “help steer the world-famous and lucrative British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry Resort in Scotland.”

This is the sort of corruption that would have made Boss Tweed proud — using our nation’s diplomats as fixers for Trump’s interest. But it also reflects Trump’s indifference to the idea that the State Department serves the national interest. Turning an ambassador into an errand boy for Trump’s money-losing golf course undercuts our envoys’ ability to carry out the work of the nation.

And there was this startling news on Tuesday at Trump’s first briefing on the pandemic since April: “I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said when asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, who was arrested this month on charges that she aided convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, her onetime boyfriend, in his sexual exploitation and abuse of underage girls.

This is shocking on its face. But given Trump’s proven willingness to intervene in the criminal justice system and bandy about pardons to protect himself and his friends, it’s possible that Trump was sending a signal. Of course that’s not certain, but do we want a government where such a question naturally arises?

There was also Jane Mayer’s extraordinary reporting in the New Yorker this month about how weak federal regulation through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the pandemic has endangered the lives of thousands of poultry processing workers — and how Trump’s campaign has profited from industry contributions.


This is classic influence-peddling under the shroud of an anti-government ideology. But it underscores how Trump’s claim that he would govern on behalf of “the forgotten men and women of our country” was false — unless corporate CEOs were the “forgotten” people he had in mind.

Beyond the direct costs to Trump’s all-about-himself government, the indirect costs are just as large. Trump’s obsession with his interests pushes the consequential things aside.

It was astonishing that Trump thought he was saying a good thing when he declared at Tuesday’s coronavirus briefing that “we are in the process of developing a strategy.”

Really? The president is “in the process” of working on this after five months of catastrophe and more than 140,000 deaths?

And more than two months after Democrats passed an economic recovery bill in the House, Republicans in the Senate were in chaos this week as they tried to formulate an alternative. One reason, The Post reported, was “the White House’s failure to go into the talks with a preset strategy or a list of proposals they knew GOP lawmakers would rally behind.” Trump touts his economic genius but offers no leadership as the economy languishes.

A decade ago, in his powerful dissent in the Citizens United case, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “it is fair to say” our country’s Founders “were obsessed with corruption.” They understood that corruption and bad government go hand in hand. It’s a shame our president is so eager to prove them right.

E.J. Dionne’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

Donald Trump never smiles always angry and his mood mirrors failure

Donald Trump failed. He failed in business and failed to demonstrate any ethical capacity to make decisions.  His only motivation is self preservation.  He is a dangerously classic cult leader.

Chris Wallace is receiving positive responses about his revealing interview with Donald Trump, Associated Press reports.

This picture with Chris Wallace was taken when Trump was potus-elect. But, the July 2020, interview with Wallace is given high marks. “This was an ‘A-plus’ accountability interview,” said Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief who spoke to five presidents as a journalist and now teaches a class in the “art of the interview” at George Washington University.

This opinion echo reflecting on the interview was published in The Atlantic, with Peter Wehner byline. 

The most revealing answer from Donald Trump’s interview with Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace came in response not to the toughest question posed by Wallace, but to the easiest.

At the conclusion of the interview, Wallace asked Trump how he will regard his years as president.

“I think I was very unfairly treated,” Trump responded. “From before I even won, I was under investigation by a bunch of thieves, crooks. It was an illegal investigation.”

When Wallace interrupted, trying to get Trump to focus on the positive achievements of his presidency—“What about the good parts, sir?”—Trump brushed the question aside, responding, “Russia, Russia, Russia.” The president then complained about the Flynn investigation, the “Russia hoax,” the “Mueller scam,” and the recusal by his then–attorney general, Jeff Sessions. (“Now I feel good because he lost overwhelmingly in the great state of Alabama,” Trump said about the first senator to endorse him in the 2016 Republican primary.)

Donald Trump is a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man. He is so gripped by his grievances, such a prisoner of his resentments, that even the most benevolent question from an interviewer—what good parts of your presidency would you like to be remembered for?—triggered a gusher of discontent.

But Trump still wasn’t done. “Here’s the bottom line,” he said. “I’ve been very unfairly treated, and I don’t say that as paranoid. I’ve been very—everybody says it. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. But there was tremendous evidence right now as to how unfairly treated I was. President Obama and Biden spied on my campaign. It’s never happened in history. If it were the other way around, the people would be in jail for 50 years right now.”

Just in case his bitterness wasn’t coming through clearly enough, the president added this: “That would be Comey, that would be Brennan, that would be all of this—the two lovers, Strzok and Page, they would be in jail now for many, many years. They would be in jail; it would’ve started two years ago, and they’d be there for 50 years. The fact is, they illegally spied on my campaign. Let’s see what happens. Despite that, I did more than any president in history in the first three and a half years.”

With that, the interview ended.

Such a disposition in almost anyone else—a teacher, a tax accountant, a CEO, a cab driver, a reality-television star—would be unfortunate enough. After all, people who obsess about being wronged are just plain unpleasant to be around: perpetually ungrateful, short-tempered, self-absorbed, never at peace, never at rest.

But Donald Trump isn’t a teacher, a tax accountant, or (any longer) a reality-television star; he is, by virtue of the office he holds, in possession of unmatched power. The fact that he is devoid of any moral sensibilities or admirable human qualities—self-discipline, compassion, empathy, responsibility, courage, honesty, loyalty, prudence, temperance, a desire for justice—means he has no internal moral check; the question Is this the right thing to do? never enters his mind. As a result, he not only nurses his grievances; he acts on them. He lives to exact revenge, to watch his opponents suffer, to inflict pain on those who don’t bend before him. Even former war heroes who have died can’t escape his wrath.

So Donald Trump is a vindictive man who also happens to be commander in chief and head of the executive branch, which includes the Justice Department, and there is no one around the president who will stand up to him. 

Trump has surrounded himself with lapdogs.

But, the problem doesn’t end there. In a single term, Trump has reshaped the Republican Party through and through, and his dispositional imprint on the GOP is as great as any in modern history, including Ronald Reagan’s.

I say that as a person who was deeply shaped by Reagan and his presidency. My first job in government was working for the Reagan administration, when I was in my 20s. The conservative movement in the 1980s, although hardly flawless, was intellectually serious and politically optimistic. 

Moreover, Reagan himself was a man of personal decency, grace, and class. 

While Reagan was often the target of nasty attacks, he maintained a remarkably charitable view of his political adversaries. “Remember, we have no enemies, only opponents,” the former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who worked for Reagan, quotes him as admonishing his staff.

In his farewell address to the nation, Reagan offered an evocative description of America. “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it,” he said. “But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”

A city tall and proud, its people living in harmony and peace, surrounded by walls with open doors; that was Ronald Reagan’s image of America, and Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party.

When Reagan died in 2004, the conservative columnist George Will wrote a moving tribute to his friend, saying of America’s 40th president, “He traveled far, had a grand time all the way, and his cheerfulness was contagious.” Reagan had a “talent for happiness,” according to Will. 

And he added this: “Reagan in his presidential role made vivid the values, particularly hopefulness and friendliness, that give cohesion and dynamism to this continental nation.”

There were certainly ugly elements on the American right during the Reagan presidency, and Reagan himself was not without flaws. But as president, he set the tone, and the tone was optimism, courtliness and elegance, joie de vivre.

He has since been replaced by the crudest and cruelest man ever to be president. But not just that. One senses in Donald Trump no joy, no delight, no laughter. All the emotions that drive him are negative. There is something repugnant about Trump, yes, but there is also something quite sad about the man. He is a damaged soul.

In another time, in a different circumstance, there would perhaps be room to pity such a person. But for now, it is best for the pity to wait. There are other things to which to attend. The American public faces one great and morally urgent task above all others between now and November: to do everything in its power to remove from the presidency a self-pitying man who is shattering the nation and doesn’t even care.

Donald Trump's history lesson

Echo opinion by journalist Mike Barnicle published in the Daily Beast.

‘People actually laughed at a president’: At a U.N. speech, Trump suffered the fate he always feared - Donald Trump had long accused American leaders of being taken advantage of by foreign counterparts. But he was the one who suffered indignity during a speech at the United Nations.

It seems easier every day to wonder if America has lost its memory. 

And it seems even easier to believe that what many of us thought and felt about our country 42 months ago is different today as we sit in July of the 2020, election year.

Growing up, a lot of us took it for granted that we lived in the greatest country on Earth. 

Indeed, it was an automatic—didn’t the Greatest Generation survive the (a) Great Depression, (b) defeat Japan and (c) Hitler’s Germany, and leave Europe without claiming any territory? We came home, implemented the (d) Marshall Plan, rebuilt whole nations, passed the (e) G.I. Bill, signed a (f) national highway act that opened up the country, helped create suburbs, (g) defeated polio, (h) matched Sputnik, (i) went to the moon, (j) applauded Elvis, said hello to (k) The Beatles and good-bye to (l) JFK, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy while so many had so much dignity stolen from them in places like (m) Birmingham, Alabama, Mississippi, and Massachusetts, and as too many lives and part of our soul disappeared in (n) Vietnam.

We got through Nixon, Watergate, gas lines and huge inflation. Reagan, Bush, the first Gulf War; Clinton “never had sex with that woman” and never explained why he pardoned Marc Rich. The Supreme Court elected George W. Bush and we nearly elected John F. Kerry.

We witnessed a cloud of fear covering a perfect blue sky on September 11th, with President Bush acting like a leader in that moment as he stood in the smoking embers only to turn and light up the Middle East where the fires still burn. We saw Barack Obama arrive carrying a gift of hope that remains largely unopened. We have been eyewitnesses to Russia, a sworn enemy, seeking to disrupt our elections and we go through the days as spectators on the sideline as the dead keep coming home to Dover, Delaware, in flag-draped steel caskets to tears and questions.

Through all of it—the good, bad, the memorable and the instantly forgotten—America has bumped along while millions of our citizens were left without equal access to pieces of their citizenship we take for granted: the right to vote, to be pulled over for a traffic stop without fear, to stroll around a supermarket or a department store without being followed, to expect children to learn in a safe environment, to walk a city street without being stared at, to never be hungry.

We were never a perfect nation but a lot of the time we tried. And failed. But then kept on trying.

We were and are an imperfect nation, an imperfect people, living in this huge, sprawling, multi-colored, open, free land called America. No matter the built-in defects placed in our story by our own hand and our own history it’s remained a land of opportunity, one that’s always in the process of re-working, re-making, re-defining itself hopefully for the better. And no matter what tragedy or inequity occurred, no matter how shocking, terrible or unfair it was, the sun kept coming up in the morning, optimism always emerged from the shade, the darkness and the embers.

Until now.

Donald Trump continues to prove an incompent COVID-19 response

A Tulsa World echo opinion letter: 

During the past three years, I have often wondered how Donald Trump and his administration would handle a nationwide crisis where American lives are at stake.

From what we have experienced so far with COVID-19, the answer is "incompetently".

As a result, the chaos we now see across the nation is the result of an absence of a unified plan, without the benefit of medical experts, absent the direction of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, inability to coordinate resources, misinformation, blatant lies and denial of the severity of the coronavirus problem. From

Winifred D. Asher, in Owasso, Oklahoma

US-Mexican Border Crossings Put Migrants in Danger

Don't forget crisis continues at southern border


I am deeply troubled about what the Trump administration is doing to immigrant families who have come to America seeking asylum from violence. And even though the media isn't reporting on it much these days, the crisis at the southern border with Mexico has not gone away.

Tragically, the Trump administration is now forcing families to remain in Mexico and won't even process asylum claims. This is un-American. We used to welcome immigrants to this country as a sign of our nation's strength. Now Trump uses immigration to turn Americans against immigrants. The one lawmaker I see who has been working tirelessly to give a voice to immigrants harmed by Trump's policies is Sen. Jeff Merkley.

I remember when he went down to the border in 2018 to shine a light on the child prisons. It meant a lot to me that he did that and exposed the humanitarian crisis for what it is.

Lots of politicians just give us lip service and rarely show meaningful action or compassion. Senator Jeff Merkley is one of the few politicians who actually cares what happens to these migrant families. We need more like him.

From Cheryl Bristah, Northeast Portland Oregon

Federal storm troopers in our midst attack former Naval Academy alumn and USN CEC officer

"He attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, after high school, later serving with the Navy Seabees while becoming a commissioned Construction (CEC) and Aeronautical Engineering Corps officer."

Federal police strike Chris David, a protester, with baton, use pepper spray and tear gas outside courthouse in Portland Oregon.

OMG!  Published in the Portland Tribune in Oregon.

In the United States of America, Trumpzi motivated Storm Troopers attacked a US Naval Academy graduate who was protesting aginst racism.  "David stood as solidly as a rock while federal officers pepper sprayed him twice and struck him at least five times with a baton during a rally outside the Hatfield Courthouse on Saturday, July 18."

My friend and soon to be sworn in Maine 2021 legislator Dr. Sam Zager and a Naval Academy alumn wrote this:

"Chris David, a 53-year old U.S. Naval Academy graduate valiantly took a beating from anonymous federal law enforcement agents (reportedly Border Patrol). David joined the Portland Oregon protests after seeing videos of anonymous federal agents snatching protesters off the street in Orwellian scenes this weekend. His message: 'That oath of office is essentially swearing loyalty to the Constitution of the United States, and what they're doing is not constitutional anymore'."

Portland Oregon protester describes beating by federal officers

By Zane Sparling in the Portland Tribune 

Chris David of Portland was struck repeatedly by federal officers' batons during a downtown rally on Saturday.

Christopher David is not a man of steel.

But he has earned that and other nicknames — some call him "Captain Portland" or "Supersoldier" — after David stood as solidly as a rock while federal officers pepper sprayed him twice and struck him at least five times with a baton during a rally outside the Hatfield Courthouse on Saturday, July 18.

Of the attack, captured on video by the Portland Tribune, David says he "just took it."

"I knew I was never going to react. I was never going to fight back," he said. "I'm a little too old to be beaten by a bunch of young guys."

David, 53, of Portland, is hardly an anti-establishment type. He says he attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, after high school, later serving with the Navy Seabees while becoming a commissioned officer and aeronautical engineer.

The unmatched series of protests here have waxed and waned for more than 50 nights, but Saturday's rally was David's first, his attendance spurred by reports of unmarked vans snatching protesters off the streets without due process.

He arrived around 8 p.m. and was just planning on leaving when federal officers burst out of the bricked-up front of the courthouse around 10:45 p.m.

Donald Trump's evil storm troopers are attacking innocent people!

David said he slowly approached the officers, hoping to engage them in dialogue.

"I felt these gentlemen were violating their oath of office, and I wanted to talk to them," he explained.

Things didn't go according to plan.

As some federal officers rushed to push down makeshift barricades propped against the outer doors of the courthouse, one officer pushed David back. He stood stock still as several more officers swarmed forward, striking him with a baton and pepper spraying him. David says he lost his vision momentarily, due to the spray and clouds of tear gas engulfing the park.

He sat down on a park bench, before being pulled back from the flashpoint by a street medic, going by the name Tav, who treated David and ensured that he was taken by an ambulance to the hospital.

David says he has two fractures in his hand and, while it's currently in a splint, he is expecting to need surgery later this week.

After a flurry of attention, David is hoping life will return to normal soon. While he never did speak with the camouflaged feds, he said he hopes they hear his message:

"That oath of office is essentially swearing loyalty to the Constitution of the United States, and what they're doing is not constitutional anymore."

Zane Sparling,  Reporter